SPLEEN is the personal blog of Stephen Judd

New York diary - last part.

22 Jan

It's been a lovely bright clear day. We dawdled packing this morning. Poor old Stephen had already left to fly to Baltimore for some work thing or other. I whistled Randy Newman to myself while I packed. American placenames have produced so many evocative tunes. Auckland will never produce a good lyric - maybe Dominion Road is the closest we'll get, and Don always tries to get as many syllables into the last line as ever he possibly can.

Eventually we boarded the Long Island Railroad for what I presume is the last time for a while. We're completely blase by now. Hannah knows all the stops from Cedarhurst to Penn Station and is quick to remind me to change at Jamaica. She saved the day when the ticket machine rejected my last big note by producing some crumpled cash of her own. I love my kid. She comes through. It's going to be great when I'm a toothless old codger, I can tell already.

Ibrahim the taxi driver and I discussed Ghana and chocolate on the way to the hotel.

Ibrahim Usman: It is the golden tree, but we don' respect it.
Me: Yeah, we're like that with cows and sheep.

We powdered our noses while we waited for Shaun to come and meet us in the hotel lobby. He took us round the corner to a tiny burger joint for lunch. The patty in mine was an inch thick. It's Shaun's magic first date place, I understand; slurpy burgers break down barriers.

I learned a new phrase as we walked towards the burger joint: "iPod Idol". This describes the phenomenon of people who've mistaken the volume level of their iPod and are unconsciously, audibly, singing along. This happens on the subway fairly frequently.

The lovely Shaun then graciously guided us to the Museum of Natural History. Dinosaurs baby, dinosaurs. This is the kind of serious, comprehensive, permanent dinosaur exhibit I saw in books when I was a kid in Hamilton, and which we will never see in New Zealand. I wish, I so wish I could have seen this with ten year old eyes. Hannah was vooming around like a mad thing. We even found a Parasaurolophus from her old school project. We did speed up past the dioramas though. I found them sad and creepy. I really hope the elephants weren't real.

We were due to meet the Causanschis for dinner in the East Village at six, so Shaun took us down there. So who should be on the C train when we get on but my old mate David, who we'd seen only the previous week? David had assured me when we bumped into his neighbour on the subway that these things never happen in Manhattan. I enjoyed both seeing him again and reminding him of this assertion.

Shaun took his leave of us by Washington Square and we went up to Hillary's sister Brooke's apartment on Mercer. Who is Hillary? Who is Brooke? Years ago, when Hannah and her mother and I still lived in Hamilton, we hosted students from America who had enrolled in a three month programme that would give them credit at their college at home. We got the Jewish ones, because the course would fall in the early part of the year and I would know where to find a seder for Passover. About six years ago, Hillary came from Long Island to stay with us, and she was a delight. Years passed and we lost touch; but just before we left, Hannah's mum dug up an old email address. Not only did Hillary come over from Philadelphia for the weekend to see us, but her parents insisted on taking us out to dinner. And so that's how we ended up with Hillary's sister and brother-in-law (the Fleishmanns) and Hillary and Ester and Alan (the Causanschis) at a very nice restaurant in the East Village. I was once more able to tease Hillary. I spent ages trying to teach her proper Maori pronunciation, but we foundered on the rock of "Ng". If you speak Long Island, "ng" always has a hard "g". Finger and singer and long and strong all have a hard G. So she used to live on Lon Guy-land. Anyway, the proverbial great time was had by all, or by me at least.

Mike and Brooke had been to New Zealand on honeymoon, and indignantly told me how they were fined $200 for failing to declare a small jar of honey. "They made such a big thing out of it." I tried to explain that they sure did, because they wanted Mike and Brooke to tell everyone when they got home - don't bring honey to New Zealand. "Well, we'll tell 'em not to come at all." "If they're gonna bring honey, we don't care!" Alan and I commiserated about American restaurants - it's all about the quantity.

This morning we rose late again, and finally arranged to meet Sarah and Stephen and the kids at the New York aquarium in Brooklyn. Hannah and I were really brave and figured out the subway route on our own. By the time we got off the D train at Coney Island to change for the F to get off at West 8th, Hannah was saying "I think I've really got the hang of this." And it's true, you can master the subway if you're ten. It really is a marvel, and one of the things I love about New York the most. I get a real kick out of finding the entrace (it's never obvious from a map, you have to snoop around all the street corners at an indicated intersection), planning where to change, and counting off the stations as we ride. I could grow old doing that. And unlike the London Underground the cars don't mysteriously stop and leave you suffocating in the heat for 20 minutes... By the way, the amusement park at Coney Island is shut for winter, and it looks desolate, sad and spooky.

They had a touchpool, which featured a large snail -- no big deal to Kiwis like us -- and horseshoe crabs. The horseshoes were awesome. Much bigger than I expected. The shells are articulated in the middle so they can fold up and tuck their tails in. Their limbs have little appendages on the end just like little toes. I was very taken with them, but I began to feel that the staff were abusing the poor creatures for our benefit, flopping the crabs over to force them to right themselves, and handling them roughly. So we moved on.

Walrus feeding time and some big, big hawksbill turtles were my favourite. Considering that they're really one tonne whiskered sausages full of blubber, the walruses are adorable. They perch patiently for treats of mackerel, clams and squid. The keepers have trained them to present themselves for inspection, so they wave their flippers and roll over on command. For all I know they come, stay and play dead too. The turtles' faces combine sad liquid cow eyes and a mouth like a fat lady sucking on a lemon. Hilarious and tragic at once. If I ever meet anyone who eats turtle soup, I'm gonna punch them.

We had a few navigational issues driving back to Cedarhurst to find somewhere for lunch. Stephen had been given careful directions to a great kosher food joint in Brooklyn and lo! it was not there, so we had to double back. Despite the interesting scenery (Cyrillic signage from all the Russian immigrants, followed by Arabic and Gujrati, followed by Hudson River and harbour views) I was kind of cranky by the time we reached the kosher grill place in Cedarhurst. One serving of matzo ball soup later (not as good as Sarah's though) I was doing a lot better, and Hannah had already made friends with another little girl in the kid's play area. "Is New Zealand in the United States?" New York, New Hampshire, New England, New Mexico, New Zealand -- that makes a weird kind of sense.

We said our final goodbyes at the grill joint door. I stifled a tear in the car park, and we took the train back to the city.

We were late getting in and I have a cold coming on, so I abandoned my plan to attend Joao Grande's capoeira angola academy. By way of compensation, we went to the Brazil Grill just up the street from our hotel. They made Hannah a delicious drink with soda, fresh lime and sugar, and I had caipirinhas even better than last weeks'. One honking great meal and a doggy bag later, we staggered back - and that's it for now.

24 January

Terrible insomnia. I made Hannah turn the light out at 10 PM, which is still way too late for her, but I lay awake until 3, and even then only dozed fitfully. I'm hoping that if I can't sleep until 3 AM NY time, then my body clock is still tuned to NZ, so at least the jet lag should be minimal on the way back.

We rose around 9 and made our way out. First stop breakfast at a place called Pigalle. I regret that it was not very good. Of course we saw a much better looking place one block up. Maybe we'll have time to go there tomorrow before we leave.

We continued on to the subway and took the 1 all the way down to South Ferry, so we could ride the Staten Island Ferry. Hannah dozed on my arm until we reached our stop. It's becoming a familiar pose for her.

The Staten Island ferry is free, runs every half hour or so, and takes you out from the southern tip of Manhattan across the harbour, passing close by the Statue of Liberty on the way. You also get a great view of Manhattan from the south. The day was gorgeously fine, but there was a lot of haze. These guys don't know what clean air is. (I noticed in Los Angeles, where I could see brown smog all around, that people kept telling me how the air used to be terrible. A terrifying idea. As it is, my nose and lungs are crying out. I'm dry and crusty inside.)

Once that was done, we walked up through Battery Park to Wall St and the financial district. I enjoyed that very much, especially since I'm slightly familiar with the area from my last trip, but I'm not sure Hannah was too impressed. If the idea of being in one of the major centres of money power in the world doesn't grab you, then it's just a bunch of buildings. Udon soup for lunch.

The small person's legs were tiring, so we abandoned my plan of walking uptown along Broadway (a nice stroll which I would love to do another time) and took the A train up to Union Square. (I really do think of Duke Ellington every time I take the A train. One day I'll make it to Harlem.) Squirrels! Lots of the little furry bastards, hopping around and nibbling on nuts. I guess people must feed them.

Shopping at Forbidden Planet (a well-stocked comic shop) and the Strand bookshop ("18 miles of shelves!") left us loaded down with goodies, and we were glad to call the afternoon quits early and head back uptown to our room. We're heading out for dinner with the amazingly generous Causanschis again tonight. I think this might be it for record keeping until we get home.

*home again*

At dinner Ester produced another set of presents for Hannah and for me, proving that "amazingly generous" was an apt and prescient description. Hannah and I gaped at a huge shopping bag, such as one might be given in an upscale boutique, from Dylan's Candy Store, filled with "retro candy." It included such delights as Whistle Pops, Laffy Taffy, and Crybaby Sours (which came with a party timer so you can see who can hold them in their mouth the longest).

We took the subway back. I love the subway. Did I mention that already? Once you cop to it you can go anywhere you want for two bucks. Every time I use it I get a little surge of pride and pleasure. Look at me! I'm riding the subway!

In the morning we packed. Somehow I managed to get all that candy into Hannah's bag. There was just time to go out for coffee and a bagel for breakfast. As we got to the cab, the doorman and the cabbie were talking. the doorman was a small guy from the Indian subcontinent, the cabbie a thickset Ukrainian Jew.

If you want really fluffy matzo balls, use soda water when you mix them.

when American recipes call for a large egg, that's a New Zealand size 6.

You cannot get good espresso anywhere in New York. I'm beginning to wonder if it's a style or taste thing, because it was all consistently bad the same way: over-roasted and weak. The only time I had one approaching what I think of as good was from a Peet's coffee concession stand at JFK.

American restaurants, as we know, serve portions too large for any human being. Snooping on other diners reveals that most of them don't finish their dinner either. The quantity fetish spoils dining for me - I hate the waste, and I hate feeling that I haven't done justice to the meal. Goddamn it, I paid for that!

Americans do not return their trolley in the supermarket carpark.

They sure love their flag.

Soupnuts are small squares of pre-cooked hard noodle (like the crispy noodles in Chinese food) for use as croutons in soup. They are delicious, and the less discerning snacker will slurp them from the container.

Citrus juices may be purchased from the supermarket in three different grades: no pulp, some pulp, lots of pulp. How civilised.